Madison Local School District
Ohio School Public Relations Association
AJ Huff – Coordinator of school community public relations
The Senior Experience
– class
What
– 21st century teaching and learning
– language arts credit
– students apply, 6 students in class
– blog about their senior year.
– Also go to the other buildings
– They get a MacBook
– Digital camera this year
– Taught to be responsible with social media
– Real life experience. Work in the administration offices during class
period
Student videos
The project is the 4 Cs.
Why did we need the senior experience?
– additional help
– Social media experience
– Main Street Madison – parent lead public forum. People were visiting
it for information instead of going to the school’s website.
The plan:
– First year the students were hand picked for the pilot.
– Wanted it to be part of the main website
– want video and pictures in the blog
– promoting the seniors
– highlight videos
How is it evaluated
– Students are earning language arts credit
– students still have to take senior English
– problem based learning
– website hits
– a lot less misconceptions posted on main street Madison
– track top pages on site, blogs are consistently in the top 10
People do want to hear about the academics
Risks
– safety: signed aup, contract, loan agreement for equipment,
– Money: permanent improvement funds,
– Responsibility: AJ Huff
“Don’t be afraid to take risks, especially smart ones. ” – Steve Jobs
Q: did you have to turn people away the 2nd year?
A: received a list of 40 recommendations from the English dept.
Widdowed it down to 20, then discussed with the principal. 12 were asked
to apply, of which 10 did.
Q: comments are blocked on the blogs, what about the FB page?
A: FB page is new, but hopefully can turn negative comments to
positive.
Q: Any plans to open it to others?
A: not at this time
Q: How did you come up with 6?
A: Original plan was they would be paired, because they work
unsupervised in the office.
Q: How will you use Facebook?
A: Ultimate goal is to still drive traffic back to the website.
Q: How often do the students post?
A: In the beginning they tried 1 to 2 times a week, but that became an
issue with all the other projects. Now it’s around once every 7-10 days.
Q: How do you handle their personal FB pages?
A: That’s really outside of the jurisdiction of the school.
Q: How much do you change their articles?
A: Quick edits, try not to change the message. Did have a problem with
one post, student talked about the whole family going to Florida for
spring break.
Q: Controversal issues in the school?
A: Situation hasn’t come up
